


The Things You Look at Change

by tormalyne



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 17:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tormalyne/pseuds/tormalyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuroko and Kagami stood and watched the long, glittering arc the basketball made against the sweet blue of the sky, floating for an instant at the peak of its perfect parabola and falling straight for the hoop, plummeting, plummeting toward the welcoming embrace of the net… and missing completely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things You Look at Change

Kuroko and Kagami stood and watched the long, glittering arc the basketball made against the sweet blue of the sky, floating for an instant at the peak of its perfect parabola and falling straight for the hoop, plummeting, plummeting toward the welcoming embrace of the net… and missing completely.

The ball bounced on the asphalt of the court with a hollow thud once, twice, three times, and rolled to a stop at Kuroko’s feet. He stooped to pick it up and took the opportunity to lift the hem of his shirt and wipe beads of sweat off his face. Around the edges of the court, cicadas buzzed a discouraging commentary into the sweltering summer air. It was not a promising start – had not been a promising start twenty minutes ago when they were fresh from the air conditioned coolness of Kuroko’s apartment building and looking to pass the time before everyone met them for a reunion dinner to which they were now guaranteed to show up sweaty, stinking, and late. Still, Kuroko was the worst at giving up even when the heat was making him waver on his feet in time with the viscous, soupy shimmering of the air in the scant few meters between him and the basket.

Before he could attempt another shot (the fifteenth, with Kagami’s increasingly less-patient attempts at showing him how to get the ball to deign to touch the rim of the basket, much less actually go in that continued to be as unsuccessful as they had been three years ago), Kagami thumped his hand down on Kuroko’s head and laughed, a deep, full-throated sound that drowned out the cicadas’ grim opinions.

“You’re still just as bad as when we were in school,” he said, and actually sounded pleased, as though Kuroko’s inability to make anything resembling a normal shot was a comfort – or a relief. Perhaps it was, Kuroko thought. There could certainly be something reassuring in returning to Japan and finding that at least one thing had not changed in the year since Kagami had gone back to America for university. In the year since they’d seen each other except over late night Skype calls, snatched during the hours when it wasn’t too late for Kagami’s classes and not too early for Kuroko’s, talked to each other through email and atrociously written letters accompanying the Lakers gear Kagami had sent Kuroko for his birthday and Christmas both.

Even Nigou now had his own jersey in purple and gold, and Kagami had made grumpy, threatening noises about what he’d do if he got back to Japan and saw the dog in the pet-sized Clippers shirt Himuro had sent along one time in a care package for Murasakibara instead.

Kuroko had sent back his own letters, written in a markedly neater hand and accompanied by packages from Momoi of some of the more traditional Japanese foods Kagami complained about not being able to find easily in L.A. as well as a jersey for Aomine’s BJ league team, autographed copies of Kise’s interviews in Basketball Monthly, lucky items, limited edition sweets, exquisitely painted sheets of curving calligraphy to be hung in Kagami’s apartment – all things to remind him of the friends he still had, waiting.

After a thoughtful pause in which Kuroko very carefully considered Kagami’s words, turning them over and finding he didn’t mind them as much as he might once have, he jabbed Kagami in the ribs for old time’s sake and smiled at him, just a little, as he doubled over wheezing.

“I’ve improved a little bit,” he said serenely, and waited for Kagami to catch his breath before he suggested a vanilla shake wouldn’t be remiss in soothing his bruised feelings while they waited for everyone else to show up and inevitably want to join in.


End file.
